Musings of a Mom: Forever Young

It has been a rough couple of weeks.

So much going on, many things that very few people really know or understand. My heart is aching.

Today I was about to eat lunch when I glanced at my phone. I had a message.

A message to call my mom.

My heart sank.

My mom and I do talk but rarely during the school day.

And very rarely with her initiating it (because she knows how hectic my days are).

Honestly I didn't know what to think. She is recovering from surgery so I was just thinking maybe there was some sort of setback.

What I wasn't expecting was "I have some very sad news. Your Grandma R died..."

Um, what???

How can that be?

She was my "young grandma."

My dad's mom.

She never was one of those "textbook" grandmas.

Even when I was a teenager, she was still working. Still running all over town to visit family and friends. She had brown hair and very few wrinkles. At least not that I saw.

I never saw her knit. Not one time.

Grandma R was up on all of the entertainment news. She watched tv shows and listened to mainstream music.

Many of my memories of her involve those trips to Michigan.

As soon as we got there, she took us grocery shopping. She bought us sugary cereals (which we didn't eat at home). She bought us orange soda and later Mountain Dew (she loved her Pepsi). She bought us (by us, I mean my sister and me) cheese balls, you know the fluorescent orange balls of fluff with no nutritional value.

At night, we would curl up on that guest bed with our orange soda and orange cheese balls. And we would watch St. Elsewhere.

The funny thing is I don't drink or eat those things any more. But I still think of those days when I see them.

I was probably barely a teen when she let me try to drive her car. First time behind the wheel. If she was scared, she never showed it.

When I was in my mid-teens and had a boyfriend, she would try to get me to eat green vegetables in exchange for some time to call him back home.

And one of her favorites of all time was the Peanut Buster Parfait at DQ. We had those a time or two or three when we visited.

Later, when I was older, she actually moved to Arkansas. (with my Grandfather)

No matter how old I was, she welcomed me with open arms and a Mountain Dew when I visited.

When I got married, she was there.

And as often as she could, she came to each child's birthday party.

And even when my grandfather passed away, she was sad but she just kept going.

Every birthday, a card would arrive. Early. With her handwriting. I always knew her handwriting.

Grandma loved her family, Pepsi, elephants, and dolls.

Life was not always easy for her. She lost both her mother and her husband (my grandfather) in my lifetime.

And I know in recent years she didn't feel her best.

For the first time, she wasn't running around, working, staying busy.

But to me she was still my "young grandma".

And now, she will forever be...

Miss you, Grandma.